Eddie Redmayne gave a “very frank” response when asked about the future of his Wizarding World movie series.
The Oscar winner played Newt Scamander in the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling initially announced the series would be made up of five films off the back of the first movie’s success.
However, follow-ups The Crimes Of Grindelwald and The Secrets Of Dumbledore proved less popular with critics and movie-goers, with Variety reporting back in 2022 that the future of the franchise was “in limbo”.
During a new interview with ComicBook.com, Eddie was asked if he had any insight into whether people have seen the last of Newt on the big screen.
“They probably have,” he admitted. “That was a very frank answer, but yeah. And that’s as far as I know.
“I mean, you’d have to speak to the people at Warner Bros. and JK Rowling, but as far as I know, that’s it.”
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Eddie did say that his Fantastic Beasts character “may come back” in some form in the Harry Potter section of Florida’s Universal Studios amusement park, which would allow fans “a glimpse of what he was up to in Paris”.
However, beyond that, Eddie seems convinced that no Fantastic Beasts films are in the pipeline.
The Fantastic Beasts series previously came under fire in 2017, when it was revealed that Johnny Depp had been cast as the dark wizard Grindelwald, at a time when he had been accused of abuse by his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Rowling said on her website at the time: “Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.
“I’ve loved writing the first two screenplays and I can’t wait for fans to see The Crimes Of Grindelwald. I accept that there will be those who are not satisfied with our choice of actor in the title role. However, conscience isn’t governable by committee. Within the fictional world and outside it, we all have to do what we believe to be the right thing.”
Depp subsequently took legal action against The Sun newspaper over an article which referred to him as a “wife beater”.
When the UK High Court ruled in 2020 that there was enough evidence for this description to be “substantially true”, Depp parted ways with the Fantastic Beasts franchise, and was replaced in the role of Grindelwald for the third film by Mads Mikkelsen.
Depp and Heard were later involved in a high-profile defamation case, which came to a head in 2022 when a US judge ruled in favour of the Edward Scissorhands actor.
Fantastic Beasts faced further controversy when it was revealed that the character of Dumbledore’s sexuality would not be explored on screen, as well as further backlash over the lack of diversity among the films’ cast.
